Simon, after holding Clara for 45 minutes one afternoon: “Mommy, can you take her now? The ankle of my arm hurts, and I’m hot because she’s such a snugglebug.”

And I have sneaking suspicion that, given how much he tries to make deals and find loopholes in situations, Simon will either be a politician or a salesman. For example, he had to get shots a few weeks back, and he tried talking his way out of them by saying "Let's make a different plan. I don't need those shots because I don't get that kind of sick. I only get the phlegm."

He's also developing a bit of a sense of humor. Renae made a comment that Clara needed a bath because she was getting crusty. His response: "She’s crustier than a pizza!"

"I like lady bugs, but I don't like real bugs"
"Mommy says I can do (insert a long list of things she wants to do) when I'm a big girl. I'll be a big girl when I'm 6"
"I have rocks in my nose" (they were boogers)

We have finally figured out with the help of a good pathologist that our little two year old guy has an oral motor problem that has affected his speech and ability to eat. Basically, he is not able to use his tongue yet for some reason - but we are going to be able to help him gain that physical control relatively quickly.

The problem is he is an extremely expressive and communicative person, which has made his inability to form words well very frustrating for him. As a result, he has discovered a mechanism for communication that serves as a workaround.

He uses facial expression and body language to tell us how he is feeling and what he is thinking.

Instead of speaking, he has learned to contort his face into many different expressions that make you understand exactly what he is trying to tell you. Nothing is better than his wow face. He has different sets of exaggerated body language that mimic his current emotional state. For example, when I ask him to do a small chore that he doesn't like, he drops his head and shoulders like Charlie Brown and begins lumbering around like an old man. When frightened by something, his entire body shuffles into a request for a hug while he pointedly turns his back to the direction of his anxiety. When trying to make you laugh, he rolls into a slapstick routine with whatever is on hand. He has a little repertoire of these stock movements.

So we essentially have a little Charlie Chaplin in our house. I can't wait for him to beging talking with us, but I will always treasure this comedy he has brought into our lives.

Dominic (6) and Eric (4) recently received two beta fish. Dom's is named "Mars", and, as you might suspect, is a crimson red. Eric's, tellingly, is named "Blue Mars". The other day, Mars died while Dom was at school.

In kindergarten, Dom journals--it's a delight to see his little one or two sentence stories, accompanied by six year old artistry. On his return home from school the day Mars died, he'd brought one of his journals home. Before my wife could break the news about Mars, Dom began to read the journal to Eric and his mom. He reached a page with the following story, accompanied by a little sketch of a blue blob and a red blob.

"I hav a red Betta fish. His name is Marz. Eric has a blu Betta fish. It is named Blu Marz."

Eric interrupted matter of factly, as if he was commenting on the day's local news. "Oh, your fish? It died."

1. The next-to-last chapter/story in A Visit from the Goon Squad is a PowerPoint presentation on pauses in rock songs prepared by a twelve year-old girl. The intricate structure struck me as a bit too precocious, and the whole exercise seemed a bit tedious. This, I suppose, was meant to give me a foretaste of what awaited Ali and I a few weeks later from our twelve year-old:

2. We just returned from vacation on Wednesday, and my 8 year-old daughter Virginia came with me to retrieve my car from the office. I went inside the building to see the volume of mail I'd received over the past week, and when it was time to leave, she exited with me, then doubled back to my office for reasons unclear to me. When I got into the office yesterday morning, I had a yellow post-it note on the edge of my desk-- usually a sign to see somebody or call somebody. It read: "I love you and can't wait to see you--Virginia." At 7:45 a.m., I was tearing up.

1. The next-to-last chapter/story in A Visit from the Goon Squad is a PowerPoint presentation on pauses in rock songs prepared by a twelve year-old girl. The intricate structure struck me as a bit too precocious, and the whole exercise seemed a bit tedious. This, I suppose, was meant to give me a foretaste of what awaited Ali and I a few weeks later from our twelve year-old:

Russ, you gotta buy her a phone, if for no other reason than because, at the age of 12, she's already mastered the use of the apostrophe. Virginia's note almost made me tear up, and I've never even met her.

My objections at this point are non-economic-- they're just timing and propriety. She and a neighbor have a dog-watching/walking business that generates enough money for her to buy the thing herself. She just needs Ali and I to stop telling her to wait.

And I said the same thing to Ali, Darren-- I saw a typo and a misspelling in there, but getting the apostrophe right compensated in full.

I caught a preview of Chimpanzee with my daughter the other day, and, during the end credits, the film gives you a bit of a glimpse of the scientists and filmmakers at work actually making the film.

My daughter suddenly had a surprised look on her face, and she said, "Are those real cameras? Is this REAL?" Yes, I said. "Can we go home and tell Mommy that they made this with real cameras?" Yes, I said. And so we did.

I just get a kick out of the fact that she thought the chimps and monkeys and whatnot might NOT have been real. (What, did she think it was all CGI?)

My daughter, 6, upon coming home from school a few days ago and seeing that I had vacuumed the place: "It's so clean! Oo la la!" (And oh, how I wish there was a way to type the particular inflection with which she said "Oo la la!".)

My daughter, when I asked her about a week ago if she would be interested in a summer day camp where the kids do arts and crafts: "Arts and crafts are the SAME THING! Art is when you make something, and crafts are when you make something!" She did seem a little put out by the fact that I was using seemingly redundant terminology.

Simon recently got a baseball bat from his grandparents, so I've been teaching him how to hit a ball -- and more importantly at this stage, how to make sure that he's not swinging the bat when others, i.e., his younger brother, are nearby. We were recently practicing, and I reminded him yet again to make sure that his brother wasn't nearby because otherwise, he could hit him in the head and really hurt him.

To which Ian, who was outside (but not near Simon, for what it's worth), responded, as sweetly and guilelessly as you could imagine, "And then I would die."

Cue exchange of horrified looks between my wife and I while Ian just sat there, sweet as could be...

The other day my wife took our 6-year-old son on a shopping trip to buy a present for my sister's baby shower. My sister isn't due for another couple months, so my wife told our son that we didn't know what the baby wanted because he was still inside his mommy -- to which our son responded, "He wants OUT!"

Ian: "What's that for?" (Pointing to my wedding ring.)Me: "That's my wedding ring. I wear it to remind me how much I love Mommy and to show others that I love Mommy."Ian: "Oh…"Me: "Someday, when you marry a pretty lady, you'll wear a wedding ring, too."Ian: "Yeah, when I marry Mommy."Me: "You can't marry Mommy because I'm already married to her. You'll need to marry another pretty lady."Ian: "Like Rowan's mommy." (Rowan is one of his buddies at church.)